Magpies have enough to overcome fixture pile-up – Nicholls

ASHLEY Nicholls believes the Magpies have the squad to get through the rest of the season.

With cup games, waterlogged pitches and now freezing temperatures forcing matches to be postponed, Dorchester Town face a busy second half to the season.

Saturday’s match at Weston-super-Mare was the latest to fall to the weather and tomorrow night’s home encounter against Farnborough (7.45pm) has to be in doubt too.

But despite a relatively small squad and the potential for injuries, Nicholls feels the Magpies have the resources to be able to deal with the backlog of fixtures over the coming months.

And the midfielder would like to see players from the reserves make the step up should injuries take their toll while at the same time recognising that depends on how the first team is doing on the pitch.

“I’m confident we’ve got the squad to get through it,” he told Echosport.

“We aren’t going to have much of a choice and with such a small squad we’ll just have to grin and bear it really.

“We’ve got quite a few young lads so they should be able to handle it but I expect I’ll be pretty sore after all the games.

“A couple of players are out on loan so if we are struggling they can be called back and as they are playing they’ll be match fit.

“And if some of the lads on loan do have to come back it will freshen things up a bit.

“In all honesty, I’d like to see some of the lads from the reserves push on and look for a place in the team.

“That’s why you have a reserve side and it would be good if they could step up. It’s nice when you get local lads coming into the team.

“But then when you’re not doing too well sometimes it means you can’t give them a chance so it’s a difficult one.”

At least Saturday’s postponement did give the likes of Lewis Morgan and Sam Malsom the chance to shake off their injury problems and with several departures from the Avenue in recent weeks, boss Phil Simkin will need everyone to be on the ball tomorrow.

“It would have been nice to get on a roll and keep going but unfortunately the weather isn’t letting us do that at the moment,” added Nicholls, who scored the winner against Dover last Tuesday.

“But it will be the same for a lot of other teams so we can’t complain.

“We had an unsettling few weeks but we got that win under our belts and hopefully we can get a bit of consistency.”